


Clarity

by entanglednow



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-24
Updated: 2008-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"I knew you were coming, I painted you a picture."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

  
Sylar had never had a flair for art, but he can be more than competent at anything, given the practice. It's what he does, it's how he works. So the stark, grisly angles of his first paintings have become something smoother, something more real. He's not an artist but things are more clearly what they're _supposed_ to be.

Isaac's power isn't always easily understood. The paintings seem at times obvious and at others bewilderingly abstract. They always show what happens. But sometimes it's a matter of _perspective_.

Though this newest painting leaves Sylar briefly...stunned. This is, for a long moment, too strange, too unexpected to believe. Laid out in ever thickening lines of paint, laid out and _real_ , and the slim wood of the brush still held in his hand confirms as much.

He hears the footsteps behind him before he hears the heartbeat, though the heartbeat is fast and loud.

"I knew you were coming," he says smoothly. "I painted you a picture."

"Another power you stole," Hiro accuses, and Sylar turns around.

He's the only one who seeks him out, time and time again, to fight him. That means something. That's a determination, a persistence that Sylar can't help but find fascinating, _frustrating_ but fascinating.

"A power I won, a power I deserved."

"You don't deserve anything."

Sylar still can't decide if Hiro Nakamura is full to the brim with bravery or stupidity. Dressed for class rather than warfare, glasses sliding down his nose in tiny increments, and it's such a _human_ thing.

Sylar lifts a hand before he can. Hiro's skin is cold, and Sylar's fingers are tacky with spots of paint that haven't dried, he leaves a smear of blue on the side of Hiro's nose when he pushes his glasses back up. And Hiro doesn't flinch away from the gesture, his face is a picture of frightened determination.

"I don't know what you're trying to do here, but I will stop you -"

Sylar steps out of the way, lets Hiro see the painting behind him, the smell of it still wet and thick in the room. And Hiro's words trail into nothing, all motion, all determination disintegrates when he _sees,_ when he sees the future Sylar has found behind his own eyes. It's like watching someone fall from a great height.

Sylar circles around behind him, puts his hands on his shoulders, and Hiro doesn't pull away but takes a shuddering step back, as if Sylar might push him closer to the canvas.

"That's the reaction I had when I saw it the first time. But then you of all people should know the future is more impossible than we can imagine."

"Not like that." Hiro shakes his head.

"You make a pretty monster," Sylar murmurs against the edge of his cheek, and it's soft, it's so _very_ soft. Hiro shakes his head again.

"I'm not a monster."

"The future says you could be, after all you're the only other person that's using what you've been given, that's _revelling_ in it."

"I want to help people," Hiro says fiercely, chin tipping up in a way that he seems helpless to stop, a twitch of determination.

"No, you want people to be _better_ , you want to fix things. You want a grand plan, a destiny...." Sylar draws out the word, feels Hiro's shoulders tense under his hand.

Sylar lifts a hand and gestures at the painting.

"But look what you're going to let me do."

Hiro makes a noise, some half-broken sound of refusal.

"The paintings never lie," Sylar points out. "Touch it, if you don't believe me, touch it yourself."

Hiro shakes his head, like the very idea is impossible, like touching it will make it real.

"Touch it."

It's a dare, but Hiro surprises him then, hand half-lifting from his side, wavering in mid-air. Sylar catches it, lifts it higher and drags it through the stark black lines of his painted coat, where it's fallen, and it's still wet, the paint smearing around and over his fingers, and Sylar feels it through his chest when Hiro takes a breath, when he realises it's _not_ a lie.

"I cannot believe I would do that, I will not believe - that's not me." There's more fear than conviction in the words, and Sylar knows what fear sounds like far too well.

"You've done it already, you've become that already, did you forget the immortal you left rotting underground? The immortal who's going to choke to death over and over, for as long as he's down there -"

Hiro's hand jerks away from the painting. But Sylar doesn't let it go, he drags it against Hiro's chest, a tangle of fingers and paint. And Hiro Nakamura is small but solid in his grip, all breath and surprise and wet, slippery fingers.

"You're there already, you took the biggest step yourself. _You_ decided what was best for everyone else. You decided what was best for the world." Sylar lays the side of his cheek against Hiro's, curious how he could have ever thought his skin was cold, because it's burning now. Hiro inhales, half fright and half surprise at the invasion of space. "It's not a painting," Sylar tells him. "It's just a mirror you've been refusing to look in. That's what you become when you make the rules for other people."

Hiro says nothing, but his hand relaxes under Sylar's fingers, and it feels like defeat.

"I won't become that," he says desperately.

"Are you sure? You've played the hero, maybe you want to play the villain too."

Sylar shifts his face sideways, a drag of stubble against smooth skin and when Hiro breathes there's a lost, heavy sound to it.

"Maybe you'd like it."


End file.
